Flash Flood — Carter, Kentucky

2024-09-27 · near Norton Branch, Carter, Kentucky

Event narrative

Dawson Creek rose out of its banks and caused flooding along Williams Creek Road in Norton Branch.

Wider weather episode

The end of September featured a strong Category 4 Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in the Florida Big Bend region on September 26th. After sailing through the Mississippi Valley, Helene quickly deviated its track to the west-northwest as it began to pivot around an increasingly cut off upper level low disturbance positioned over Kentucky, and became post-tropical in the process. This brought forth the start of impacts to eastern Kentucky on the 27th, with strong to damaging wind gusts and locally heavy rainfall.

Wind gusts of 50 to 60 miles per hour were observed frequently across southwest West Virginia, with multiple areas of downed trees and power lines in the Bellefonte, Flatwoods, Raceland, and Russell areas of Greenup County on September 27th. The strongest wind gust observed in the eastern part of the state occurred at the Ashland Airport in Boyd County, recording a gust of 51 miles per hour just after 1:00 that afternoon. Significant flash flooding also took place in Carter and Greenup Counties, where several local creeks rose out of their banks. This was from the locally heavy rainfall that was associated with Helene, which yielded much needed moisture to the state after a summer filled with a historic drought.

Additional rounds of showers continued to impact Kentucky from September 28th to October 1st as the lingering remnants of Helene were absorbed by the stationary upper level disturbance, and would only come to an end with the help of a crossing cold front on October 2nd. However, no additional impacts were caused by Helene after the 29th across eastern Kentucky.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (38.3374, -82.8100)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1217186. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.